Death and what happens after is the primary concern here, if you go in the dirt and thats it, you have that experience in common with the 87 billion people who have done that before you, by numbers your death is trivial, but it's gonna be a really big deal to you.
right.. and when someone believes that what they do here means something in an afterlife, that can have consequences that effect people of a different belief system (or no belief system). how many virgins do i get again when i fly this plane into that building? i don't necessarily find believing in something a bad thing. i do, however, typically find it a waste of time and energy. so it's disappointing to me when someone devotes all their time to something i relate to mythology when that time could be better spent. and when that belief starts to dictate how someone might cast a vote that effects my life, i find it downright repugnant. so when you crank that up a notch and say that if you kill an abortionist, you're going to heaven for saving babies.. it's just straight dangerous. back when gods were first introduced into human thought, it was out of necessity. "why does the sun go away and then come back?" "why didn't the crops produce this year?" must be something outside of our control. we know better these days. sure, there's an infinite amount of shit we still have no idea about. but i just can't force myself to believe that it's some intelligent being or force involved.
on a side note.. it always cracks me up when people talk about the apocalypse and there's this whole drawn out process for proving that god exists and there are still disbelievers and so different plagues have to be introduced to convince people.. i'm sorry, but if all of the sudden a shit ton of people disappear and there's a giant trumpet horn coming from the sky, i'm a believer now. i don't need all the other bullshit. i'm convinced. bring me on up. until then, however... it's all zeus to me.
